Isolated single heart cells provide a valuable model for electrophysiological experiments, enabling intracellular dialysis and single-channel analysis of ionic currents.
This review highlights the foundational techniques and advantages of using isolated single cardiac cells for electrophysiological studies, including patch-clamp and intracellular dialysis.
Whatever techniques of isolation one may use, it is certainly true that the isolated single heart cells are very useful in various physiological experiments. For electrophysiology, the application of the single cell serves to test findings previously obtained in the multicellular preparation. Therefore, summary and comparison of the data will become necessary in the near future. Furthermore, the application of the single cell opens new areas for electrophysiology of the heart, because when using only the single cell preparation, one can dialyse intracellular millieu and can also measure single channel analyses.
Hiroshi Irisawa (Sun,) reported a review. Isolated single heart cells provide a valuable model for electrophysiological experiments, enabling intracellular dialysis and single-channel analysis of ionic currents.